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update 21 march 06: settled! thanks for all your help! ms. nana ozaeta, the executive editor, has graciously offered an apology and full cooperation in this matter. i do appreciate all your suggestions and how vigilantly some of you have come to my aid. however, quit with the threatening letters already before i get in trouble, aiiiight? ;)

some of you may know that marketman and atekaren recently had photos from their blogs published without permission in a national newspaper. despite support from other bloggers, this is a continuing problem that all bloggers must contend with; however, i was surprised when it happened to me.

f&b world magazine, a food and beverage industry magazine based in manila, downloaded one of my blog photos and published it without permission, despite its creative commons license. it was on page 17 of the insert, "baking press", from the january/february 2006 edition of f&b. i am disgruntled. f&b world, shame on you--you could have picked a better photo!

anyway, i sent e-mails to the editor-in-chief and to several other editors, but all my mail was sent back as being undeliverable (mailboxes full). i've sent a fax, will send a letter, and had someone in manila call their offices, to no avail. what i am hoping is that by publicizing this, i'll find someone out there who actually knows someone at the magazine, and let them know that i am trying to contact them. i am not asking for money, nor an apology; i do, however, insist on them following the terms of the creative commons license that all my online photos hold. i would also like them to know that flickr and blogs are not online repositories of free stock footage for print media to plunder.

i may not be a professional, nene, but i'm no amateur. if anybody out there can help, i'd appreciate it.

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comments:

Weird! Especially since we put up web, not print quality, images on our food blogs!

Given their email inbox issues, perhaps this publication is on its last legs.

If contacting the magazine doesn't work- contact their advertisers letting them know of the photo incidence and that you are giving the publication bad press on your blog (make sure to include some web stats in there too).

Cheeky, rude and disrepectful. They obviously have people trawling flickr and blogs for free images. At least a credit would be nice. McCauliflowers suggestions sound good - hit them where it hurts - advertising revenue. I can only imagine how many photos have been published without credit.

Mraaah! What the heck is up with that? I wouldn't mind people using my photos if they at least credit it...or maybe give me something in return. Heehee.

This makes the magazine look pretty bad. Image stealers! :( It wouldn't have taken much effort for them to contact you. One of my friends had a flickr photo taken by ticketmaster.com for an artist profile page. Oooh bad idea.

Santos - you are well within your rights to send an invoice with damages to the Editor. If they fail to respond you can take it the small claims court, although how that would work or even if it's possible re: Guan and Manilla I do not know.

Here's a good place to start looking at basic rates:

http://media.gn.apc.org/rates/index.html

What this raises, and a million other similar case I imagine, is that with all this 'stuff' online - some of which is very commercially attractive to publishers is 'perceived' as being free. Creative Commons licences are still niche and little known outside blogdom etc.

The next big step for Flickr etc. is making all this stuff sellable for thems that wanna sell and buyable for thems that wanna buy.

In the meantime folks like you get caught in the current limboland. I've also had stuff robbed - a Vietnam tourist map was the latest culprit. On the other hand I've had people approach me to buy stuff - the US Government believe it or not waas the most recent - and for school calendars - 4 requests for those in a couple of years... wierd...

grrr... that is infuriating! i'd take a look at the creative commons site to see whether they have any template letters for enforcing your license. also (in NYC at least) there are organizations like Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts that would draft something for you, i'll bet.

Adam Curry of the Daily Source Code podcast just had a similar experience with a magazine that published some of his Flickr photos. They also had a Creative Commons copyright. The mag is based in the Netherlands so he took them to court there and tried to get damages against them. The Judge did not award damages but she did warn the publishers to not do it again and that set a legal precedent, in the Netherlands at least. Their defence, by the way, was that since the photos were marked 'public' it was okay to use them. They just ignored the Creative Commons issue. http://curry.podshow.com/?p=70

Boy, I like this publication - really classy and reputable judging from their immediate response. The editor replied to my email in support of you, informing ME about what they're doing about this mix-up.

Glad to hear the matter was resolved Santos. What disturbs me is how many other bloggers out there are having their photos stolen without their knowledge. How will they ever know if the photo editors use a photo from a blog that isn't as well visited or from another country where the publication isn't available? Sad to think that these businesses resort to unprofessional tactics for a few photos.

n, i do have a copyright on the blog, text, and photos. that is what the creative commons license defines. i didn't want to put a full all rights reserved copyright on this because i want people to be able to share it. however, i want people to share it with acknowledgement, but not necessarily compensation.

DISCLAIMER: this is a personal journal with no desires to be anything but. it contains my opinion with occasional fact thrown in; recipes have been tested where noted, in an unairconditioned kitchen in the tropics. YMMV. for my sake and yours, consult a professional!